1. Field of the Invention
The field of the invention is traps and barriers for snails. The original application Ser. No. 06/728,796 for the One-Way Snail Gate and the C-I-P application Ser. No. 06/803,081 were assigned to Group Art Unit 325 now abandoned.
2. Description of Related Art, Including Information Disclosed Under Sections 1.97-1.99
This invention relates to a one-way gate for gastropods, including snails and slugs, and for other creatures which use means of crawling locomotion similar to gastropodan locomotion, but do not hop or fly. The primary use conceived for the one-way snail gate device is in trapping such creatures to eliminate them from gardening and agricultural areas, though it also has applications in controlling, sizing and sorting such creatures. So far as I am aware, there presently is no simple, inexpensive, effective, non-poisonous, mechanical device for trapping snails and slugs. Instead, snails and slugs are eliminated either by laborious hand-picking or by use of various poisons, frequently containing arsenic, metaldehyde, methiocarb, Mesurol (Registered Trade Mark), or carbamate compounds.
A non-poisonous system for collection of such creatures is a desirable alternative to the poisons and other methods now employed. It is desirable that the system remain functional notwithstanding wetting from rain or automatic watering systems.
The lack of a non-poisonous, mechanical trap for such creatures apparently is due to the difficulty that has been experienced in devising a gate, adapted to gastropodan means of locomotion, which such crawling creatures can pass through to enter the trap, but not pass through in the reverse direction to exit the trap.
Ibach, U.S. Pat. No. 3,550,308, and Lindley, U.S. Pat. No. 4,251,946, among others, describe devices which have unrestricted openings through or under which a snail or slug can enter and from which the creature could exit. The snails and slugs then must either be physically picked up or disabled by poison before they depart.
It is an objective of the Snail Gate and Snail Pen inventions to allow entry of snails and slugs, but to mechanically prevent their subsequent exit without need to poison or pick up the creatures to prevent their departure.